


He Tells Me Worship In The Bedroom

by Pandemic



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: I just love Steve, M/M, Possessive Tony, Steve Feels, This turned into a bit of a Steve meta I'm sorry, Tony Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-10 22:23:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3305543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pandemic/pseuds/Pandemic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Tony has dreams, sometimes. Dreams of tying Steve up, of having him splayed out like a god at altar so Tony can pay worship to each individual cell that makes Steve who he is. He wants to break him apart and put him back together in divine adulation that would leave them both shaking."</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Tells Me Worship In The Bedroom

Steve is  _beautiful_ . Lines soft where they should fall harshly, skin golden where it should be pale. Tony often likes to just whisper his fingers down his stomach, watching the muscles there tense and flex from the sensation. He doesn’t get away with it for very long though, Steve muttering for him to  _get on with it_ in a whimper that means it is all too much and not enough at the same time.

Tony has dreams, sometimes. Dreams of tying Steve up, of having him splayed out like a god at an altar so Tony can pay worship to each individual _cell_ that makes Steve who he is. He wants to break him apart and put him back together in divine adulation that would leave them both shaking.

Tony can hold on too hard, he knows the way he rakes his nails down Steve’s back or the way he worries teeth into Steve’s shoulder can’t be anything short of painful. But he likes to leave his marks, likes to count how long they stay embedded in Steve’s skin before the serum wipes in out and makes the cells anew. He thinks Steve likes it too, the way he presses marks long since gone like a touchstone when he’s nervous.

After a battle where one of them have cut the wire that fraction too close, Steve will find him afterwards, embed himself into Tony with dust covered fingers until they are sweating and shaking. Tony feels flayed open after these encounters, raw with emotion Steve has pounded into him, with the words of adoration Steve has whispered soaking into his neck.

Their relationship errs on unhealthy according to Fury, who is angry that Steve is now wiser to the organisation-that-once-was-S.H.I.E.L.D.’s deception thanks to Tony. Angry that Tony no longer caters to curried favours in the military thanks to Steve. He doesn’t have his pawns anymore, instead only able to watch as they grow to kings on a chessboard Fury himself had set up to watch fall.

Tony watches Steve in battle with something akin to wonder. He is a phenomenally good leader. Intelligent (in a way that often takes Tony’s breath away), charismatic, kind and generous. His loyalty is unflinching and his empathy extraordinary; able to take in every factor before taking action and moving his team to the best possible points without faltering.

But he also is exceedingly reckless. He works on gut feelings and instinct rather than percentages and calculated risk. He simply laughs with a bloody, broken smile when it goes wrong and causes himself to bear the brunt (he never miscalculates with someone else’s life, his own he’s not so precious with). His loyalty binds him to stretching so thin you’d think he’d shatter just to save one more life, just to return _one_ more kid home. Tony yells at him after these sort of moves, the times he goes up against the enemy alone and goads them in order to give those hostages a fraction more time. He doesn’t deal in no-win scenarios, and Tony would make a Star Trek reference if he thought Steve would get it.

The worst part is that he seems to believe that the rest of his team are indispensable, with the exclusion of himself.

Every single time Steve goes up against danger and comes up short, you can find Tony beside his hospital bed, knuckles white. The serum works overtime in these periods to stitch Steve back together, and Tony is forever terrified that this will be the time Erskine’s formula calls it quits.

Tony classifies this time as Time Steve Spends with His Eyes Not Fixed on Tony (aka periods of time when Tony is Really Fucking Stressed and You Should Stay Away). He busies himself with keeping his lover tidy. He’ll shave his face, cut his hair and wash his chest with an intimacy that leaves anyone else feel like they are intruding. When Steve wakes, it is always to Tony, and the smile he graces him with makes the protests Tony has phrased in his head die on his lips.

He can’t help it though, now. Every time the alarm sounds and he watches Steve shoulder into the suit like he was born to do it, there is a treacherous voice that whispers _please stay_ in the back of his mind. Every hit Steve takes Tony can feel under his skin, feel his blood thrum with it, with the unseen caveman want to protect his mate to the ends of the earth.

He loves every part of Steve, he knows he does. That includes soldier Steve. He knows the reasons, the pair having flayed themselves bare to one another. Steve is a kid who had always pushed himself, thought he wasn’t going to live for long so was hell-bent on going out with a flash and bang. He hasn’t lost that side of him, the knowledge that a little pain is a good enough trade for making a difference. He is so inherently good, and he think that is why this cynical and paranoid America that has been created in the aftermath of Vietnam, of 9/11 and Iraq, just _loves_ this stupid man in red, white and blue. He represents the America that could have been, that could have taken on the world and changed it for the better after Pearl Harbour. He refuses to allow the jaded and sarcastic America That Is become their legacy.

For god’s sake the man’s weapon was a fucking _shield._ His first line of offense is defense, is protecting what is his or he’ll die trying.

But when Bucky comes back (and man is that a clusterfuck) Steve changes. When they find him on the shore, battered and bruised beyond what Tony has ever seen, he doesn’t wake up smiling. He wakes up twisted and cynical and angry. Tony _hates_ that he sees himself his Steve.

The only other time he has seen Steve this broken is when he sat him down to talk him through the wars that have been. Of Afghanistan, of his _own_ manufactured weapons becoming the ones you only have to fire once to wreak destruction. No thought or planning needed. Steve takes it in, takes it all in with only a nod here and there to show he’s listening until Tony mentions Rwanda, talks through Bosnia and Steve is screaming. Tony doesn’t ever want to repeat that, but now he seems to have a front row ticket to the slow imploding of Steve Rogers.

His work in the field becomes even more desperate and if Tony thought Steve was reckless before this is an entirely different ballpark. He saves Natasha from a particularly nasty fall, he tackles Clint out the way of a falling building, he steps into Thor’s shadow when the man cannot be spared from Asgard and he guards a shattered Bruce who turns back in the middle of battle.

He won’t let Tony fight alone, constantly one step ahead protecting him at the expense of himself.

When they fuck it is tinged with a dirty desperation. Steve is rough, greedy and everywhere at once. Tony, who before had been begging for Steve to mark him hard enough for him to feel it for days, finds himself completely thrown. Steve doesn’t fuck around with his strength, too worried that he could misjudge his strength in the heady veil of lust. He likes to have Tony spread for him, keening, sometimes keeping him at the edge for what feels like years before letting Tony fall over the other side.

Now, he makes love like every time is going to be their last and Tony doesn’t know what else to do but press his fingers into Steve’s skin and groan, trying to provide him with a lodestar in the midst of Steve’s panic.

Tony needs Steve to be okay, needs him to pull through because he can’t do it alone, not anymore. He can’t be shown this future, this perfectly idyllic future, to only have it snatched away from him. So he holds onto to Steve as fierce as the man presses into him. He finds himself clawing harder and harder to the scraps Steve will throw him, trying to stitch them whole. Tony is running himself ragged, not sleeping between recalibrating Steve’s armour to be faster, stronger, protect the man that holds his heart in his hands, and also trying to keep his lover close – there whenever the man might need him.

It all comes to a head mid battle. Tony is _shattered_. He’s so tired he can’t see his display through the blurriness of his eyes. A stupid hit gets too close, and normally Tony would have been able to compensate and spin to throw a repulsor blast of his own, but his movements are sluggish. It feels like he’s wading through thick custard and his arms won’t keep up. He can only hear Steve’s yell of _TONY_ before the next hit takes him down faster than he can think.

This time, the story is different. Tony wakes, smiling, to Steve bent low over the hospital bed, murmuring words that sound like prayer. Steve watches Tony’s eyes open and grasps his hand even harder.

“Hey Shellhead.” The words are practically whispered, quiet and nearly shaking with relief, “Thought we’d lost you there.”

“Never.” Tony whispers back, and Steve leans in, pressing his forehead to Tony’s, rubbing his thumb across his lower lip and Tony can’t help but grant him entrance. Steve presses a thumb in, seeking heat and when Tony laves the digit with his tongue he watches Steve’s eyes dilate before the man reluctantly pulls his thumb out and lifts it to his own mouth, sucking it dry. This moment should be a little bit filthy and dirty, but Tony feels laid bare.

“I’m sorry.” Steve speaks when he can stop to compose himself, “I was in a bad place, and I should have told you. I can’t believe I didn’t notice-“ Tony cuts him off by lifting the hand that is still attached to Steve’s and presses a kiss to the inside of the man’s wrist. “I’m here.” Steve starts instead, “I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere. Not again.”

There are words left unshed, unspoken. But they thrum through both of the men’s veins.

  _I love you I love you I love you I love you._

**Author's Note:**

> Trust me that when I set out to write porn I end up writing feels.
> 
> Find me on [tumblr.](http://youaremylodestar.tumblr.com/)


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